The First Shore Party
by SolemnSerpent
Summary: Brief short in Oath of Sacrifice, but not long enough to be put as a chapter in the main storyline. Complete.


**This is a brief short in the universe of Oath of Sacrifice. This is just about before Alex arrives at the CEDA base in the prologue.**

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**The First Shore Party**

The battleship sat stationary offshore, looming in the morning mist as a giant shadow. Currently, its engines were off, though the heavy guns positioned all over the ship were aimed at the shoreline. All along the rocky beach, bodies were splayed over in the sand, or floating on a violent red tide. Seagulls screamed overhead, but none approached the corpses. However, swarms of insects had gathered around the bodies, digging in eagerly.

A small boat equipped with a motor chugged quietly over the pounding surf, eventually beaching on the rocky sand. Seven soldiers dressed in armor and dark clothing hopped over the sides. One secured the boat while the others fanned out, pointing their automatic weapons at the fog-shrouded city just above the rocky beach.

"This is Squad Alpha Juliett, reporting in," One man said while tapping the radio attached to his vest.

"This is the HMS Sierra, we can hear you loud and clear Alpha Juliett. Report in. Any sign of Kilo Squad?"

"Negative, sir. We have confirmation that the squad encountered whiskey-deltas on course to the city. No sign of any survivors, sir, and we haven't received any radio signals from the United States in weeks. What is going on here?"

"Unknown. Squad Alpha Juliett, your mission is to locate and secure Kilo Squad and any possible survivors. HMS Sierra, out."

The radio fell silent, and the seven soldiers stood still while the waves crashed against the shore.

"You heard the Sierra. Let's move out. Johnson, you take point. Cutting to video feed now. Activating helmet camera!" The leading soldier barked, and all the men fell into position.

It was dead silent inside the fog-covered city of San Francisco, other than the sound of the surf pounding against the beach and the shrill cries of seagulls in the air. There was no other sign of human life other than the corpses on the beach. There were no car engines, no trams running, and no voices. As the delegation sent by the United Nations moved forward, they saw more corpses littering the streets. Cars formed a labyrinth of metal on the street, some of their windows smashed and hoods crushed. There were a few car crashes as well, where vehicles smashed the storefronts and homes.

Alpha Juliett found the first man from Kilo Squad leaned against a wall. The man was dead, though there was no evidence of what did him in. What the squad did notice was that his guts and blood had been strewn everywhere, as though something had reached into his chest and used his innards as party streamers. The gore was still wet, and the blood was sticky. The squad inwardly shuddered and moved on.

The next man was found hanging from a street lamp, a pink, fleshy rope wrapped around his neck and body. His dead eyes were bulging with the effort that he had used to try and keep breathing, but the man's neck was neatly snapped in half and his windpipe crushed by the rope. The squad moved on again, but all of them noticed the rope looked suspiciously like a tongue…

It was then they noticed the crying. It sounded like a young girl, and it echoed eerily through the fog.

"Alpha Juliett to HMS Sierra, we have found remains of two of the seven members of Kilo Squad, and we can hear a young girl nearby, crying. We will investigate shortly," The man whispered into his radio, uneasy of the silence around the squad. The crying grew progressively louder as the seven men traveled farther down the street. As they approached, more Kilo Squad members appeared out of the swirling, white fog. One of the men had his skin and flesh dissolved, leaving little left but his clothing. Another was covered in sticky green fluid, his uniform barely visible above the piles of whiskey-deltas.

Two of the remaining men were found in the same state- their bodies had been broken and smashed against the concrete by something heavy. But the last man was nowhere to be seen, but the ominous crying continued.

Finally, when the group arrived at the street's intersection, the commanding officer spotted the young girl. Her thin and bony frame was covered in blood, and she was huddled against a wall, her knees drawn up to her face. She was crying into her hands, dirty blonde hair falling over her face. The squad approached the girl, until one man finally knelt down next to her.

"Miss, are you-" he started. The girl raised her head and let out an inhuman scream, her red eyes locking onto the unfortunate man. Her hands were not hands, but instead large, long claws, and in an instant the man was on the ground, his screams muffled by the shrieking of the infected girl as she tore through his ribcage.

"Holy shit! Open fire! Open fire!" The other men opened fire, pouring rounds of lead into the thin girl's frame. However, she took an impossible number of bullets before finally falling to the ground, dead. The man she had attacked was little more than a puddle of blood and guts, and one of the squad retched on the sidewalk. But the squad had more to worry about. The city was no longer silent.

Howling and screaming, the horde dashed from the streets into the intersection, surrounding the men on all sides. As the others opened fire, one man screamed into his radio.

"HMS Sierra! HMS Sierra! Alpha Juliett is under heavy attack from hundreds of whiskey-deltas! Jesus, the whole city must be infected! All Kilo Squad members confirmed dead, with one missing. Sir, you are not going to believe this, but the infected are changing, I repeat-"

The man was cut off by the sound of coughing, and a pink fleshy rope wrapping around his neck. He turned for one second, and his camera caught a hunched figure on the rooftop, reeling him in with… a tongue. The creature was covered in boils and lumps, and tongues protruded from its head along with smoke.

"WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT?" One man screamed, firing at the figure on the roof, but he was too late. He only heard a long dull roar, like a bull charging, and then a massive arm wrapped around his waist and he was carried into the horde by an infected with one large arm. The others could hear his screams. Yet another man was dragged off, this time by a gigging hunchback creature.

The ground was shaking now. Something dribbling green acid from its mouth dragged itself onto the rooftop, and one of the men tried to fire at it. The cameras caught the former woman spitting out a blob of green acid, and then the man with said camera fell to the ground as his legs started to dissolve underneath him when the acid hit him.

"RETREAT! RETREAT!" The remaining two men dashed back towards the beach, firing sporadically into the crowd of infected. They could see something large lumbering towards them, smacking infected out of the way. The last man stumbled to the ground, and the car that killed the second man smashed into the ground, blocking the street.

The man put his back against the car, his arms and legs shaking, and the camera on his helmet picked up his fervent praying as the lumbering behemoth approached, along with the other changed infected. And then the screen went black.

"Gentlemen and ladies, this is the situation of the United States. I sent two teams, Kilo and Alpha Juliett into the U.S. city of San Francisco. There were no survivors, but we did get this footage of what is happening there. The U.S. government has not responded to contact since the start of the outbreak, and our drones have not picked up radio signals."

There were hundreds of people seated all around a giant table, dressed formerly and looking sick to their stomachs as they watched the soldiers' camera footage on screen. The man in black who had spoken looked at everyone gravely.

"This infection is mutating. Look at these things! They were once human," he said, and pulled up the clear image of the Spitter, magnified. The audience could see close up her tattered clothes, bulging stomach, and open mouth. The Witch appeared next, looking the entire world like a small girl. The Jockey was after, its face twisted into a smile as it dragged the soldier off. The Charger appeared next, ugly face contorted into a snarl as it pummeled the man onto the ground. The Smoker was last, tongues flapping as it reeled the man in.

"I move to propose that reinforcements should be sent to the Mexican and Canadian borders, to help them to hold back the infected from crossing into Mexico and Canada. I also have reports of survivor boats out at sea. I move to propose blockading the boats and forbidding survivors from getting on board any of our vessels or from trying to seek land anywhere besides the United States. All in favor?"

Every hand in the room was raised.


End file.
